Fatal error: Class 'Elementor\Widget_Base' not found

Question

I am trying a to add a new widget from my plugin to elementor. I have followed the documentation to how to create an elementor widget: https://developers.elementor.com/creating-a-new-widget/

But problem is its not working.. No#1. When i am using autoload its not showing any error No#2. But when i am using require_once its shows a fatal error: Fatal error: Class 'Elementor\Widget_Base' not found

My widget code

<?php
namespace WPEVENTCAL\extensions\elementor;

class widget extends \Elementor\Widget_Base {

    public function get_name() {
        return 'Aembed';
    }

    public function get_title() {
        return __( 'oEmbed', 'plugin-name' );
    }

    public function get_icon() {
        return 'fa fa-code';
    }

    public function get_categories() {
        return [ 'basic' ];
    }

    protected function _register_controls() {

        $this->start_controls_section(
            'content_section',
            [
                'label' => __( 'Content', 'plugin-name' ),
                'tab' => \Elementor\Controls_Manager::TAB_CONTENT,
            ]
        );

        $this->add_control(
            'url',
            [
                'label' => __( 'URL to embed', 'plugin-name' ),
                'type' => \Elementor\Controls_Manager::TEXT,
                'input_type' => 'url',
                'placeholder' => __( 'https://your-link.com', 'plugin-name' ),
            ]
        );

        $this->end_controls_section();

    }

    protected function render() {

        $settings = $this->get_settings_for_display();

        $html = wp_oembed_get( $settings['url'] );

        echo '<div class="oembed-elementor-widget">';

        echo ( $html ) ? $html : $settings['url'];

        echo '</div>';

    }   

}

My folder structure

-Main plugin file -extension -elementor -widget.php - index.php

In index.php i am calling require_once( 'extensions/elementor/widget.php' );

It throws that error : Fatal error: Class 'Elementor\Widget_Base' not found

But when i use autoload function in index it doesn't gives any error neither shows widget

use WPEVENTCAL\extensions\elementor\index;
function autoload($class = '') {
    if (!strstr($class, 'WPEVENTCAL')) {
        return;
    }
    $result = str_replace('WPEVENTCAL\\', '', $class);
    $result = str_replace('\\', '/', $result);
    require $result . '.php';
}

what may be the problem>?

Answer 1

At the start, the Elementor class will not be loaded. So use the init WordPress hooks, in that function require the file and create an object as suggested in the below code.

function load_elementor_widget() {
    require('your-php-code-that-extends-elementor-widget-class');
    
    \Elementor\Plugin::instance()->widgets_manager->register( new \Elementor\My_Widget_1() );
}
add_action('init', 'load_elementor_widget')